Germany: Cross-party migration talks after Solingen attack

German national, state and mainstream opposition leaders are set to discuss a new security package proposed by the federal government last week and other related issues in closed-door talks at the Interior Ministry in Berlin later on Tuesday. 

The talks come in the wake of a fatal knife attack on August 23 in the western city of Solingen, among other comparable incidents in recent weeks and months.

It also follows two days after the success of the anti-migration Alternative for Germany (AfD) opposition party in elections in the eastern states of Thuringia and Saxony. 

The suspect in the Solingen case is a Syrian national and alleged Islamist extremist who was known to authorities and who had managed to avoid deportation prior to the attack. Three people were killed and eight more wounded. Investigators say he has confessed during interrogations.

The case led to demonstrative efforts from the German government to deport several other individuals in similar circumstances in the days that followed. 

Who's taking part? 

Chancellor Olaf Scholz is not attending the meeting but relevant ministers from his government and all its constituent parties are. 

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (from Scholz's Social Democrats) will chair the session, with Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (of the FDP) and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (of the Greens) also in attendance. 

Two senior members from the center-right Christian Democrats, the leader of the opposition on the national level, Thorsten Frei (of the CDU) and Andrea Lindholz (from the CDU's Bavarian sister party the CSU) are also participating. 

Finally, leading representatives of Germany's 16 state governments — many of which are made up of different combinations of parties than on the national level — are invited.

Longer term, to pass and then effectively implement any meaningful changes, a degree of consensus among all these stakeholders will ultimately be required.

What's in the proposed post-Solingen security package? 

Scholz's government last week proposed stricter rules on carrying knives in public, changes to benefit entitlements for asylum seekers, and more police powers to address suspected Islamist threats. 

Asylum seekers who first registered in a different EU country before coming to Germany would no longer be eligible for social welfare payments.

The proposal also aims to make it easier to deport people who have committed a crime with a weapon. 

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser billed the changes as "far-reaching" and "tough." 

A spokesman from her ministry said ahead of the talks that the package would serve as the "essential basis" for Tuesday's meeting. 

"Beyond the package, we have made it clear that we are open to proposals from the CDU/CSU and the federal states and will discuss these with each other," he said. 

Speaking on ZDF public television early on Tuesday, Green party politician Omid Nouripour warned against expecting too much. 

"Every idea is welcome," he said, "only it needs to make sense, must be implementable, and must conform with the law." 

CDU's Merz calls for focus on 'reduction in migration' 

The CDU's leader, Friedrich Merz, who won't be at the session in person, said on Monday after the anti-migration AfD's success in state elections in Thuringia and Saxony that the talks needed to focus more on migration numbers in general. 

Merz said the real problem in the CDU's eyes was less weapons regulations or deportations, and more "the continued uncontrolled migratory pressure." 

"If the [federal] coalition wants to talk to us about the solution, then item 1 on the agenda must be limiting migration," he said. Merz argued that for every five deported, another 100 might arrive, saying "you can't solve the problem like that." 

He said that if discussing such ideas was not on the table, no further talks would follow. 

"In that case we wouldn't need any more round tables, we wouldn't need any more therapeutic discussions," he said.

Although the Solingen attack appears the most direct prompt for this meeting, it's one of several comparable incidents and near-misses in recent weeks and months in Germany. These came amid warnings of an increased Islamist terror threat as an indirect result of the conflict in Gaza and the wider Middle East and dissatisfaction with Germany's support of Israel.

It's not clear what announcements or comments might follow the afternoon closed-door session, scheduled to start at 3 p.m. local time (1300 UTC/GMT). As of early Tuesday, no press conference or federal government press release was scheduled.

msh/lo (AFP, dpa, KNA)